Triggers
603 Words
Ava didn’t plan to come back the next day.
She told herself it was a one-time thing. A quiet cup of coffee. A polite hello. But something about that café stuck in her mind.
Maybe it was the silence. Or the way Cole looked at her like he was still trying to figure her out. Or maybe it was the fact that, for a few minutes, she didn’t feel completely lost.
She came back. Again.
This time she brought her resume.
Cole raised an eyebrow when he saw it.
“You want a job?” he asked.
She shrugged. “If you’re hiring.”
He stared at the paper. “You went to nursing school.”
“Still do. Kind of. Took a break.”
“Because of the breakup?”
Ava didn’t answer.
Cole nodded like that told him enough. “You can start Monday. Mornings. Register and floor.”
And just like that, she had a job.
Carol was surprised. “You’re working at the Hart place?”
Ava nodded. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to some people.”
“I’m not some people.”
The next few days passed in quiet rhythm. Mornings at the café. Afternoons helping Carol around the house. Evenings walking by the water.
The work wasn’t hard, but it was steady. People filtered in with sleepy eyes and small talk. Ava mostly stayed behind the counter, keeping her head down.
Cole didn’t hover. He let her do her thing. But sometimes he’d linger a second longer than needed. Ask about her day. Offer her extra coffee she didn’t ask for.
It wasn’t flirting. Not exactly.
One afternoon, he handed her a box from the back. “Can you stock these?”
She nodded and went to work.
He followed after a moment. “You okay?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“I’m fine,” she said eventually.
He leaned on the shelf. “You don’t have to pretend around me.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“You always talk like that when you’re lying?”
Ava looked up.
His tone wasn’t smug. Just calm. Like he wasn’t trying to win, just understand.
“I used to think talking about it would make it worse,” she said.
“Sometimes it does. Sometimes it helps.”
Ava blinked hard. “He cheated on me.”
There it was. The truth.
Cole didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “I found out through a message on his phone. I waited three days before I said anything. I think I wanted him to confess. He never did.”
Cole was quiet.
“He said it was a mistake. But it kept happening. He kept lying.”
Her voice cracked a little.
“I left everything. School. Friends. I didn’t even tell my mom where I was going. I just disappeared.”
Cole didn’t speak. He just stood there.
Then he said, “You didn’t disappear. You survived.”
Ava didn’t know what to say.
They didn’t talk after that. Not about the past.
But something shifted.
Later that evening, as she wiped down the counter, Cole came over with two mugs of coffee.
“No customers. Sit.”
She hesitated, then sat.
He slid one mug to her. “Still don’t like sugar?”
She nodded.
They sat in silence.
It wasn’t awkward.
It was something else.
Maybe comfort.
Maybe recognition.
Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like the end.
It felt like the beginning of something.
Something slow. Something real.
Something she didn’t know how to name yet.
- Writer
